J.F. terHorst, Ford Press Secretary, Dies at 87

J. F. terHorst, a reporter who in August 1974 was appointed White House press secretary by an old friend, President Gerald R. Ford, but who resigned less than a month later when Ford granted former President Richard M. Nixon an unconditional pardon in connection with the Watergate scandal, died Wednesday in Asheville, N.C. He was 87.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his son, Peter.

Mr. terHorst’s resignation was — and still is — considered a rare act of conscience by a high-ranking public official, and the circumstances in which it occurred were extraordinary.

He was a veteran newsman, the Washington bureau chief of The Detroit News and a respected member of the White House press corps when he was named press secretary by Ford. He had known Ford since he covered his first Congressional race in 1948 for The Grand Rapids Press, and at the time he was writing his biography.

For four weeks reporters credited Mr. terHorst (pronounced terHORST) — and the new president and his staff — with restoring openness and honesty to the White House after having dealt with a Nixon administration that they had often felt was deliberately misleading them.

The Watergate affair — the break-in at the offices of the Democratic opposition by a White House team of burglars and the Nixon administration’s attempts to cover up that crime — had its roots in this culture of suspicion and secretiveness that was fostered by the Nixon White House, and it was still being investigated by an independent prosecutor when Ford took office.

Indeed, a number of top administration officials, including Attorney General John N. Mitchell; the White House chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman; and Nixon’s top domestic policy adviser, John D. Ehrlichman; went to prison for Watergate-related crimes.

In early September, however, Ford announced that he was pardoning Nixon, saying that to pursue criminal charges against the former president would be detrimental to the interests of the country.

Photo

J. F. terHorst with President Gerald Ford
Credit
George Tames/The New York Times

Mr. terHorst felt not only that the decision was wrong — the president should not be held to a different standard of justice than people of a lesser station, he said — but also that he had been kept in the dark about it, which he said had undermined his credibility.

“I cannot in good conscience support your decision to pardon former President Nixon even before he has been charged with the commission of any crime,” Mr. terHorst wrote to Ford in his resignation letter on Sept. 8, 1974. “As your spokesman, I do not know how I could credibly defend that action in the absence of a like decision to grant absolute pardon to the young men who evaded Vietnam military service as a matter of conscience and the absence of pardons for former aides and associates of Mr. Nixon who have been charged with crimes — and imprisoned — stemming from the same Watergate situation.”

Jerald Franklin terHorst was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., on July 11, 1922, the son of Dutch immigrants. He did not speak English until he was 5. He dropped out of high school at 15 to work on his uncle’s farm but was eventually persuaded to resume his education by the high school principal. He went on to earn an agriculture scholarship to Michigan State University, where he worked on the school newspaper.

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Before finishing college, he joined the Marines and served in the Pacific at the end of World War II, then completed his college career at the University of Michigan. After graduating he took a job as a reporter for The Grand Rapids Press. His wife, the former Louise Roth, whom he had met at Michigan State and married in 1945, took a job at the rival paper, The Grand Rapids Herald.

He subsequently worked for The Detroit News, first in its Lansing bureau, then in the city room and finally the Washington bureau. The paper granted him a leave of absence to take his White House job, and after his resignation he returned to the paper as a columnist. His book about Ford, “Gerald Ford and the Future of the Presidency,” was published at the end of 1974, with an epilogue about Mr. terHorst’s resignation.

Ron Nessen, a correspondent for NBC News, succeeded him as White House press secretary. In 1981, Mr. terHorst left journalism to work for the Ford Motor Company as Washington public affairs director.

Louise Roth terHorst died last year. In addition to his son, who lives in Asheville, Mr. terHorst is survived by three daughters, Karen Morris, of Decatur, Ga.; Margaret Robinson, of Alexandria, Va.; and Martha Lubin, of St. Petersburg, Fla.; and eight grandchildren.

Shortly after his resignation, Mr. terHorst was asked by The New York Times to elaborate on his reasons.

“If justice is to be even-handed and administered to the rich and the poor, the weak and the powerful alike,” he replied, “then mercy, I thought, when administered by a president who sets the tone for the country, also should be an act of similar kind.”

A version of this article appears in print on April 2, 2010, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: J. F. terHorst, 87, Ex-White House Press Secretary. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe